Hope
by Tadpole24
Summary: Who are you? And what have you done with my Bones?" Post finale fic. BB.


**When I get in a funk, I get in a funk. There'll possibly be more little fluffy ditties coming out in the next couple of weeks. I'm in a bit of a romantic mood. :)**

**Love love. **

**Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I own my imagination. Unfortunately Bones didn't crop up in my imagination...it cropped up in Hart Hanson's. Lucky son of a...anyway. lol. I don't own Bones, but my imagination gets a kick outta playing with the characters.**

..:::..

Hope

..:::..

In one earth shattering and heart breaking moment her world had come tumbling around her. Booth had turned his tired face toward her, his bandages glaringly white and clinical against his already pale skin. She had hope in her then, she knew it. It was hope in something that was going to be brilliant. It was hope in something that would change both their lives for the better.

It was hope in something unreachable.

Because she saw it in his eyes as he turned to her. She saw curiosity and wonder. She saw confusion and disappointment. She didn't see hope and she knew that he was watching her hope fade from her eyes.

"Who are you?"

She turned away before he saw tears. He couldn't see tears from her. Not when he didn't know who she was. Not when he wouldn't understand the magnitude of his words. She had to get out of there before he knew too much. He would have to remember her on his own. That was her resolve.

She fled the room, running outside, pulling out her phone on the way to call Angela. Her logic being that her best friend could find the right words to comfort her.

The sky had turned grey since the last time she had seen it. She counted it...four days. In four days the most important person in her life had his mind clouded over, just like the blue skies from earlier that week. She only hoped that like the blue sky, Booth's memory would return.

She waited, crying, for Angela to arrive. The rain not falling, but collapsing at her feet; taking with it her tears.

"Sweetie, what _is_ the matter?"

She can't speak just yet; her words won't make sense to anyone anyway. She knows this because when she becomes upset she speaks in rational terms and she knows that Angela is less rational than herself. She can't help but see it as a flaw in herself in that moment. Instead of words, she just hugs her friend tightly. Letting her tears fall on the shoulders of the expensive coat that Angela couldn't give a damn about right now.

"Come on Bren, let's get you inside."

She nods her approval and they move to the bustling corridors of the ER. Angela guides Brennan towards a seat and tells her to stay put. As she walks towards the cafeteria, she can't help but worry that her friends accusations that the phrase 'stay put' doesn't make sense don't follow her.

She returns two minutes later with a hospital blanket and a steaming cup of coffee; both of which Brennan eagerly and gratuitously takes. Angela takes a sip of her own coffee and sets it down, hoping that Brennan is too distracted to notice the bitter after taste the coffee leaves.

"Sweetie, what's going on?"

For the first time since arriving at the hospital, the friends make eye contact and Angela is troubled by what she sees there. Her eyes are shallow and weak. Not the strong, determined and vibrant eyes of Temperance Brennan.

"I-I...it's been a long few days and I suppose I wasn't thinking. I should have known Ange. It should have crossed my mind."

Angela held Brennan's hands tight, willing her to answer her next question directly, "What should you have known Sweetie?"

Again, the pained looks crossed her eyes before she spoke and Angela's heart broke a little for her friend.

"He asked me who I was Ange. He doesn't remember" she paused, "He doesn't remember anything."

If her heart had broken before for her friend, it had just jumped out of a 12 storey building and fell onto a bed of nails, "Oh Bren. I can't imagine..."

Brennan's eyes filled with tears again and she pulled the blanket tighter around her, hoping naively that it could protect her from the harshness of the world.

"Bren, do you mind if I see him? Just to check on progress; things happen in hospitals. One second all hope is lost and the next, it's found again."

"That's a nice thought Ange. Of course you can see him."

Angela nodded and stood, giving her friend another hug.

Brennan sat, looking at the white wash walls of the emergency wing of the hospital, wondering how they could possibly look duller than they had when she had last found herself staring at them. Was it illogical to link the definite lack of colour in her world to her mental loss of her partner?

She knew it was, but she didn't care.

She tried to focus on the sounds of the hospital to stop the ringing in her ears that sounded just like the words she so desperately wished could be taken back. But nothing could drown out the incessant mantra of 'who are you who are you who are you?' accompanied by the sight of white everywhere. White bandages, white walls and pale white people who don't remember someone important.

"Maybe I'm not important."

She muttered it under her breath, but a few eyes looked towards her making her feel as though she was going insane.

She tried to focus on other things again, hearing the elevator whirring, strangely making the same noise as the mantra in her mind. None the less, Brennan looked up just as Angela stepped from the elevator. Confusion hit the doctor as she noticed Angela's obvious exuberance.

She stood allowing the blanket to fall from her shoulders, "What happened?"

"Booth remembers you."

"What? But before-?"

"He was confused. Actually, unless I've completely lost my touch, he's still rather confused. But nothing a good sit and chat won't fix."

Brennan smiled, but she reminded herself not to get her hopes up. Keeping level headed and rational in this situation seemed the best idea for her. "When you say confused...?"

Angela let out a laugh, "He wants to know why his girlfriend would run away from him after he'd been out for four days."

"Booth hasn't been 'out' anywhere, I don't know why he'd say- wait. Girlfriend?"

Angela smiled again, "Confused."

"Oh."

Angela pushed her friend into the elevator and pressed the level 3 button for her, "Don't be afraid. He's the same person, Sweetie."

It seemed a very long ride up to Booth's hospital room; the white walls seeming slightly brighter. Brennan averted her eyes and reminded herself once again to not get her hopes up. She stepped from the slow elevator into the corridor and took a peek across the hallway through the window where she knew her partner lay.

He looked happy. He was alone, but he was smiling. That was a good start. She took a step towards his room and he looked up to see her walking towards him. His smile grew. As did hers. He raised a hand to wave and she let out a small laugh. This felt so formal; like friends meeting again after a long parting; the first few moments are always laced with awkwardness.

She stepped into his room, "Hey."

He replied, "Hey."

And it was normal. This was what they did every day.

"You remember me?"

Brennan was cautious where she placed herself in the room, she knew if she was much closer she would have no control over the impulses running through her body. But Booth, it seemed, had other plans, as he reached out his hands towards her. She took a step forward, lured by the magnetic pull of her partner.

As they grasped hands, Booth answered, "Of course I remember you. You're Temperance Brennan. You work at the Jeffersonian Institute identifying victims when the conventional ways do no good." He grinned knowing the next bit would be the cherry on the cake, "You don't like pie..."

Brennan smiled, she wanted to hug him.

Booth continued, "And you're my wife."

The smile disappeared and Brennan pulled her hands from his, "No Booth. I'm not."

Booth looked at her with the same look he had when he first woke up, "What? What do you mean?"

She held his hands again, only to emphasise her point, "I'm not romantically involved with you in any way, Booth. We're partners."

He looked into her eyes and saw that she was telling the truth, yet he still did not understand the situation, "But I have memories; vivid memories of us."

"Booth, you reacted badly to the anaesthetic. That combined with me reading parts of my new novel to you...it must have triggered some pretty intense dreams. But they were only dreams." She conveniently left out that it wasn't her novel she was reading to him, but instead all her hopes and desires poured out into her laptop.

"Bones," she shivered, it was the first time he'd used her nickname since waking up and it somehow comforted her knowing that he truly did remember her, "What if..." he paused, collecting his thoughts, "What if I wanted them to be real?"

There was a moment where both sides of the partnership could feel the shift. It wasn't a shift that would register on a Richter scale; it wasn't something that would stop the world. But it was something big enough for the two of them that an invisible line was abolished.

..:::..

It was another week before Booth was discharged, and while it was uncomfortable for an active man such as Booth to be cooped up in a hospital room, it gave the newly formed couple a chance to talk about everything they needed to.

They spoke of the times they had wished had led to something more. They spoke of the times that they were glad they didn't. Brennan had dug around in her wardrobe and found the note she had written her partner when she and Hodgins had been buried alive, finally showing him the need she placed in him; the hope and faith that she has bestowed in him. That was nearly the only time she left his side though. Day and night she sat with him, lay with him and walked with him. She was there when the doctor cleared him of infectious tissue in his brain. She was there when he gained all coordination and fine motor skill back and she was there when he was discharged.

She drove him to his place where he grabbed a few sets of clothes and then they drove to hers.

"Are you sure it's okay that I stay here?"

Brennan rolled her eyes, pulling some sheets out of a cupboard to make up the spare bed, "I wouldn't have offered if it wasn't okay."

Booth placed his hand on her forearm, making her pause and turn to him in question. He tilted her chin towards him with a single finger and leaned forward. "Stop making a fuss," he whispered against her lips. The sheets dropped to the floor from the now limp arms of the doctor. "That's better." He let his mouth sweep across hers in a gentle taste. He kissed the tip of her nose, the bottom of her chin and then feather light, kissed her gently parted lips. His arms wound around her body and she lifted easily, her legs twining around his hips. He carried her slowly up the hallway to her bedroom, touching every part of her he could. He'd longed for this day for so long.

"I know it was all a dream now, the things we didn't do before." He lowered her gently to the bed, climbing in over her, kissing his way down her neck.

"Mmm...And how do you know that?" she moaned again as he lifted her body to pull her top over her head.

"Because this is much, much better."

..:::..

The moment was perfect. All that could be heard was gentle breathing coming from the lovers in the bed. The afternoon sun peeked through her curtains which had stayed drawn for the last week and a half that she had inhabited the hospital. She smiled, it was worth it.

She sighed in content and let her eyes drift shut to the sound of Booth breathing next to her and the feel of him rubbing circles across her bare back.

It wasn't until later that Brennan got a fright. They had awoken in the evening and she had suggested that they go to the diner and get some pie. And yes, she would have some too.

Booth had turned to her, smiling, "Who are you?"

She had gasped before he continued, "And what have you done with my Bones?"

..:::..

**Reviews, reviews, where for art thou, reviews? **

**xx**


End file.
